Hey, guys. I just got on the blog. I wonder how many BCM people are actually viewing it? By the way, who is Beaz?

I "love" You, God

So this week at Connector, Larry Grays (Pastor at Midtown-Bridge Church) spoke. I thought he really hit some good points and really made me think about a lot of things. He mentioned at one point that a lot of people seem to focus on the phrase, "I love You, God." He pointed out that too much of our worship is focused on us - puts us in the subject. He said that God needs to be the subject of our worship at all times. This was big for me I think, because for a long time I've been struggling with the idea of becoming less of a "me-based christian". Everything I find myself talking to God about is me, my plans, my life, my comfort, my joy. How do I break this trend? My first response in reducing the me-ness of my prayer is to want to treat God like I would any other friend and to be like "Hey, God...what's up in Your life right now...what are you struggling with?" but then I realize that that is not at all going to work. God isn't just another friend that I should support or be there for...He is so much more than that and I don't give Him the credit of being so much more very often. "I love You, God"....do I really? What do I mean when I tell God I love Him? Sure, I love Him in that moment, but will I love Him 10 minutes later when things aren't going my way?
"Does Job fear God for nothing?' Satan replied. 'Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face." - Job 1:9-11
Satan is right as his comment applies to my life, as much as I hate to admit it. I "love" God whenever things are going well for me and when it's easy to "love" Him, but what do I do when I feel down or tired or selfish or discouraged? I curse His name. I get angry with Him and sometimes I even feel hatred towards Him. I turn away from Him and instead of turning to Him for comfort and realizing that He is the one who can get me out of this, I hide inside myself and my pride and my stubbornness and refuse to accept His help. I prefer to wallow in my "horrible life" instead of being strong enough to realize that God is never "at blame", but rather is the creator and controller of all. I have no right to EVER place "blame" on God. I don't have a right to even tell Him I "love" Him. I don't even really know what love is or what that incredibly powerful word is and I think I use it way too much. I think I'm going to try not to tell God I love Him until I really mean it...even if that never happens due to my horrible human fallibility. I hate the word love. It's digressed to such a meaningless term that is thrown around like it's nothing. I don't want to "love" God the way "love" is used today. I want to love God the way He loves me. But I can't do that unless He allows me to love Him that way. I'm confused...I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere...I don't feel like I have a close connection to God...I don't understand who God is - like really understand who He is. Should I look out for myself more? Should I not be a pushover anymore? or should I be less selfish and give more and more of myself to everyone around me? But how much can I give before I break? Why is it always about me? What does it really mean for God to love us? I'm tired of my relationship with God being all about ME and God...but what else can it be? Me and my small group and God? Me and my friends and God? Everyone and God? What about just God? How can God's relationship with me be only about Him? How does that happen? Where do I go next? Who am I supposed to be? Who does God want me to be? What does God want me to do? How does God see me? How does God view Himself? Do I really truly believe in God and have faith in Him? No, not completely. Is it possible to have complete, never wavering faith in God? God is too big and too crazy awesome for me to understand...why is He like that? Why would He make us incapable of understand how big He is...I guess I sorta feel like it would make more sense for Him to make us capable of understand who He is and how huge He is, just not be able to achieve anything even remotely close to Him. Why are we so incapable of understanding? Why did God create man? He doesn't need us. He doesn't need anyone / anything. Why? Why do we spend so much time in school and then most of us never use what we learned in school...why do we even care? Larry said something to the effect of that the only reason Jesus hasn't come back for judgement yet is because God is passionate about seeing lost people repent and give their lives to Him. Then why aren't we evangelizing our little butts off to we can quick get everyone to give their lives to God so that we can get to be with God as quickly as possible. Why do we waste our time with school and sports and life in general? What does it look like to give your life over to evangelizing? Why do I hate who I am? Why do I care who I am or what I think about myself. GOD is everything. What God thinks of me - that's what matters. What does God think of me? What does God think of this? Is it ok to be confident and proud of yourself sometimes? Too much...too much to think about...too few answers...too few people who care...life isn't about you, it isn't about me, so get out of your stupid freaking hole of me-based christianity and live for GOD...when you figure out how let me know...i might be interested in trying too

Valentines day should be a day celebrating God...just like every other day...celebrating that God loves us...whatever the heck that means...not the commercialized forced "love" holiday it's become...I hate the very idea of earthly "love"

Dear God,
I love...errr I mean...God...I have nothing to say...nothing is truthful or even close to what is truth...I have nothing to say to you except....God...now how am I supposed to pray?

Ski Trip!

So this is the first time I have ever written on here...I completely failed last semester. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I'm here to talk about the goings on at the BCM, most recently the International Ski Trip. For those who don't know, the BCM has an International Student ministry that meets every Wednesday to help them learn English. They also go on trips around Atlanta and, in this case, North Carolina. I personally have never been involved in the Int'l Ministry before, but I have always wanted to give it a try and decided this would be a perfect opportunity--I had never been skiing before and wanted to get out of Atlanta for a while. 

We met at the BCM on Friday and carpooled up to NC. Just while we were waiting for everyone to arrive, I got to know several of the Int'l girls by playing Taboo and 2 of them ended up riding in my car (Schweta and Ritu). Eventually we left and made the 4-hour drive up there. It was a bit of a challenge finding places to eat since about half of the Int'l students are vegetarian, so we ended up at Pizza Hut (high quality). By the time we got to the church we were supposed to meet at, it was already somewhat late, but they had a whole program planned out for us (this wasn't just a GT event, all of the Georgia BCMs came with their Int'l kids, so there were a lot of people). This program included a comedian (which half of us missed, but apparently he made fun of UGA a lot, so he was obviously good in our books) and.....wait for it...line dancing! Apparently it's "something we here in the South like to do all the time"....yeah...well, there are some pretty entertaining pictures on facebook if you want to check those out. Some of us caught on more quickly than others...but we all had a good time.

Saturday morning we had to get up at 6 am (booooo) to eat breakfast and then leave by 7 for the ski place. That morning, there happened to be a lot of fog/cloud/something opaque, and we had to drive up the side of the mountain for about 20 minutes with almost no idea what was in front of us. And I was in the front of all the cars. Wonderful....but we made it up there alive, obviously. When we left, we saw how high up we were, and let's just say I'm glad I didn't make any mistakes. Haha. We all went and got ski equipment, and most of us went to ski school for about an hour. I had an awesome instructor from New Zealand, and after the lesson and a few runs down the bunny slope I felt ready to go on the beginner's slope. I pretty much stuck to that all day along with most of the other Tech kids. A few people went on the intermediate, and I probably could have by the end of the day, but decided it could wait until next year. I actually never fell while I was on the slope, it was just when I was standing around waiting to start skiing, or when I had just stopped, that I tipped over. Hahaha....graceful=not Lindsay.

After we stopped to take a group picture, we packed the cars and headed back to Atlanta. All in all it was a great trip, and I had so much fun with the Int'l kids. They were very friendly, easy to talk to, and grateful to us for taking them. I would highly encourage you all to get involved with this ministry. Even if you can't go to Conversation Club every Wednesday night, at least go on their trips. You won't regret it.

New Pages to the Digital Scrapbook

Chia Yearbook

I have never felt as completely reliant on God as I do now. I have never felt so horribly vulnerable and terrified. It feels horrible and unbearable, yet amazing at the same time and my tiny little brain can't comprehend how it's possible. I can't say that I frequently want to go through what I'm going through now in order to be closer to God...but I feel like God is growing me so much. It's like in the princess bride when they put him in that stretching machine. I feel like life has me by both wrists (yes i know...wrists...) and both ankles and refuses to let go. But I'm growing. Growing sucks. Growing hurts. Growing is just an overall poopy experience. But I'm growing. I'm giving it to God. Or at least I'm giving a little tiny bit to God every day. As much as I'm capable of giving that day. And one day He'll have the whole thing...even if that's not till the last second before I die...at least He'll have it. He'll have me and everything I stand for and everything I am and everything I think is so incredibly important now but as it turns out, won't even matter in a year or two or 20. I'm giving it to Him. I don't even know what that means, but I'm doing it. Or at least I think I am. I want to. I need to. I don't feel purposefull right now. But I'm growing. I have boughts of depression for stupid reasons if any reason at all. But I'm growing. I asked God a couple months ago to allow me to REALLY get to know Him. I was terrified what would happen after I prayed that. I semi-expected spouts of lava to shoot up through the floor of my room in some supernatural feat of nature and cause me to cling to the side of North Ave and then as I was about to be skewered to death by the tree below, have an angel fly down and show me a picture of God's high school year book with a cheesy "HAGS" signature by me and my so inconsistent friendship and laugh at the irony of me seeing God's "face" only moments before I would see His face for all of eternity. That's not dramatic at all. The point is that I had no idea what the heck He was gonna do but I was pretty 200% certain it wasn't going to be an easy answered prayer. I was right (for once haha) and it hurts. But I'm growing. And I'm glad I asked to know Him. I'm glad I have close friends to cry on and to love and to share with. I'm glad I know Him the tiniest bit more. I'm growing...heck I'm GROWING...how freaking awesome is it that God is growing me...of all people...me. Let's grow together. Let's grow the BCM. Easy is boring. Easy is really nice some times aka all the time but easy is boring. Let's grow and take the hard route and have bitter thoughts and hate people sometimes and not ever want to talk to God again...but then feel that wonderful downfall till trust in God is necessary so you don't go insane. Let's feel it. Let's grow the BCM together. Why are we so content with what we've already done. Let's fail a million times before we succeed together. Let's fall together. God's waiting for us to sign His yearbook...with more than just a "H.A.G.S"...why aren't we willing?

Frustration within Growth

I think i've found that breaks are the hardest times for me to be happy and to be close with God. Somehow, though, this break I have been more consistent with my quiet times than i could ever have imagined and it feels amazing. It has sorta got me wondering though, why now? Why this Christmas am I suddenly feeling closer than ever to God and finally feeling like I can get to know Him like a long friend, keep building history with Him. I think I've finally broken down and been forced to trust Him and rely on Him more than ever. Going so many places over break and feeling Atlanta homesickness has left me closer to God simply by making me more alone and vulnerable. But with this great closeness to God, I keep wondering what I'm doing about it. I have missed so many chances to bring up God to my family...or to at least talk to them about things that are so important to me without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. I'm ashamed to be ashamed of God haha - I hate this in myself...why can't I be proud to want to go to christmas eve service even though my family doesn't want me to go...why can't I just be openly strong in my faith and not only live my faith but be willing to be vocal about my faith too...where do i draw the line between being obnoxiously vocal about God and being too ashamed to even mention Him...or worse to even avoid conversations about Him...I'm tired of being so afraid of discomfort...nothing will always be easy and comfortable - why would I expect God to be comfortable. I don't know where everyone else is this break with their families, but I feel like we all bring out the worst in each other. How can we build a family of unconditional love out of a family of separation and bitterness and past loss of trust. I want to be close to my family and want to see them...I want to share God, the most important thing/person/being/whatever you want to call Him, in my life with the people who i'm supposed to be the closest to. How do I share everything I've learned from God this past year and a half without making my family angry with me or without being ridiculed or made to feel stupid and young and innocent. I want to build up my family, but I want more for them to know God. How do I change this wanting into action? How do I live what I believe? How do I show them what I believe without pushing them away? If I'm the only one going through this or who can relate to this then I'm sorry for wasting your time...I hope everyone is having a safe and relaxing break. Merry Christmas of course.

GO JACKETS!!!

**Great job to everyone who worked the cookouts and thank you to those who supported the cookouts this year!!!**

Way to finish out a season!!!

Will I serve God for nothing?

so lately i've been struggling a lot with having a lot of questions and very few answers...i guess really that isn't a horrible thing it's just really hard for me to accept that fact that i won't always get a definite answer to my questions...anyway one particular one i've been struggling with has been how to switch from trying to follow God's will for my own benefit to trying to follow God's will simply to glorify Him. I feel like everything I do is centered around whether or not i'm comfortable or i'm happy. Even college...i'm so worried about what major i should be - what job i'll get when i graduate - but really why should it matter. Do i really believe that God can't use me no matter what job I have? of course not...then why do i worry about it so much. It's not that I'm worried that i won't be glorifying God...it's that i'm worried that i won't enjoy glorifying God or doing God's will won't be easy or painless. Pretty much all this worry is focused on me and my life and my goals and my happiness. At The Midtown Bridge Today, Larry spoke about Job. He brought up two big questions something around the lines of: Will a man serve God for nothing (if he loses everything)? and Is God still worthy to be served if you lose everything? I think those are incredibly important questions because honestly I don't think I could do what Job did. The littlest bumps in the road cause me to doubt God and wonder where He's gone and why He's not fixing the problem. One huge verse for me was Job 2:10 "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" I don't know a lot of times I think I yearn to know God really well...to really really know him as a friend and father - to know Him in a way I could never know friends I see every day. But then I think about it, and I think that it's going to hurt a lot if i want to really know Him. It's just like any relationship...I can't expect to know someone incredibly well and really get them without working at the relationship and going through struggles and ups and downs....why do i expect a relationship with God to be any different...I want to "dig in and know the heart and integrity of God" I want to serve him for nothing... or at least I want to want those things...what do you want?

Tide-To-Go-Pen

A crude joke here. A spot of bitterness there. A fresh blob of jealousy. I make a thorough mess of my life. My point is, I need the equivalent of a Tide-to-go-Pen for my life. All the little things that I choose to do that are instantly regretted upon the passing of that moment seem to be showing. I need something that removes the stains so that I can be on my way looking clean and hiding the mistakes I have made. Apologize. Laugh it off. Try to forget it. Be on my way.

This summer I worked camp. One week in a city off the coast of Mississippi, we attended the churches children's service. I was asked to do a demonstration of how bleach (Jesus) when added to Koolaid (sin) removes the color. I did the demonstration and made my point that Jesus takes all of our sins away like they were never there. Really? Like they were never there?

It is hard to let go. No one really can let go of everything however hard we like to think we can. Jesus took the punishment of ALL our sins. Past, present, future. However, He does leave us with a story. This story is the memory of all the stains. This story is what witnessing is all about. The cup that overfloweth. The forrest fire. The abundant love that we just can't contain. (Insert other Christianese metaphors.) Jesus came in because you let Him in. Jesus is the difference in you and your choices. Jesus is the reason you have a story to share. Sharing with anyone about how your story changed upon letting Jesus in is your witness.

The Truth is that all the big stains that you try to hide and the small blemishes that you ignore on your favorite shirt, however unpleasing to your eyes, are what give you a witness. A story. Share it.

What are you going through?

Have you been having trouble trusting God? When you pray do you really believe that what you ask for God will deliver? Do you truly turn to God for every one of your problems, not just the ones that are convenient for you? Why ... but no, really,...why do you pray? Who are you sharing God with today? What questions are you asking?

What is everyone going through right now? Post - Share - Discuss